Prenda Law has become the most-recognized and most controversial of several "porn-trolling" operations filing lawsuits against thousands of John Does over alleged illegal downloads. Lawyers linked to the company were slapped with sanctions last month; while it's appealing those sanctions, Prenda is losing cases left and right.

Earlier this week, Prenda faced a new and serious allegation: that it had actually put some pornography on BitTorrent itself, intending for it to be downloaded so that it could start a campaign of lawsuits and threat letters. The allegation was filed in a Florida case where the defense work is being handled by attorney Graham Syfert, who found evidence that he says links a Pirate Bay user called sharkmp4 to John Steele, an attorney believed to be linked to Prenda Law.

Steele denied that he is sharkmp4 to Ars earlier this week and has denied that he works for Prenda. He does get paid a monthly fee by Livewire Holdings, one of many holding companies that uses Prenda lawyer Paul Duffy.

Now The Pirate Bay itself is handing over more data, appearing to link the pornography uploaded by sharkmp4 to Steele.

The Pirate Bay gave the data to TorrentFreak, which says that the IP address 75.72.88.156, which uploaded some porn files that Prenda has litigated over, "was previously used by someone with access to John Steele’s GoDaddy account." Other files were uploaded by users with IP addresses that also connect to pro-Prenda comments on popular anti-copyright-troll blogs.

In an update to its original post, TorrentFreak quotes a Pirate Bay administrator named Winston who assures users that the site only keeps two days worth of IP addresses logged. But it dug through old backup files to get the info about sharkmp4. “As for us sharing the IPs, we would obvious only do this to out the bad guys after we linked them to the addresses," Winston told TorrentFreak.

That seems like a seriously long time for backup tapes to be held too.

But yeah, that would be some seriously delicious irony if Steele is done in via someone else ratting out his IP address. Bonus irony points if Steele then attempts a "you can't prove that it was me just based on the IP address" defense. You know the exact argument many defendants have used that has fallen on Prenda's deaf ears.

Steele is starting to make all the connections to offshore entities, LLC's , web domains, Prenda related companies and their so called "clients" that much easier for the Grand Jury in a RICO investigation to connect to him and Prenda and it's associated morons.

Considering that 6881 forensics web domain has stele e-mail address used in the registration and the Penda Laws. domain also is registered with Steeles email address... along with several other domains.

Steele who keeps claiming he has nothing to do with Prenda or any of these cases sure seems to have a lot of information tying him back to all this for a guy who knows nothing about it as he claims.

This is on top of the fact that there are a lot of these client companies of his that are registered to his sister Jayme's home address. Then there is Jayme's boyfriend Anthony Saltmarsh who seems to have a trust named after him.

And of course who could forget about Salt Marsh signing someone court documents. Then there is Alan Cooper who is president od some of these clients like AF Holdings... then of course another amazing coincidence is that Steele's caretaker for his cabin in Minnesota is Alan Cooper. Wow.. another amazing coincidence.

It should be real interesting when the Grand Jury looking at RICO sees all these connections to Prenda and Steele, they are going to be fooled by John's denials, and Gibbs whose careers is in tatters may be looking for a little payback when he isn't able to find work due to Prenda Law on his resume and his licence to practice hanging by a thread due to bar investigations... he could become a witness in a RICO case.

It will be interesting to see who flips to save themselves, but Steele will be the last one to go down to do his over inflated ego.

That seems like a seriously long time for backup tapes to be held too.

But yeah, that would be some seriously delicious irony if Steele is done in via someone else ratting out his IP address. Bonus irony points if Steele then attempts a "you can't prove that it was me just based on the IP address" defense. You know the exact argument many defendants have used that has fallen on Prenda's deaf ears.

I wouldn't be surprised. John Steele seems to care about John Steele. If he cared about professional ethics, or the law, he wouldn't be in this mess.

John Steele, of counsel to Prenda Law, said he’s filed more than 300 such suits himself, none of which had to go past jury selection, usually settling first.

“The fact that people fight tooth and nail to let us know their names, and then once we do they immediately settle, I think that tells you a lot of the strength of our evidence and the fact that you’re not quite as indignant when you know deep down that you did it.”

What's the point in only storing 2 days of IP's if you backup those IP logs...

“The backups are stored on a separate cloud provider, pgp encrypted so the decryption key is not the same as the encryption key, and the decryption key is safely stored offline and is itself encrypted with a passphrase. So there’s no risk of users IPs getting compromised in a raid!”

So for practical purposes, 2 days worth of data, more with some serious time commitment.

John Steele, of counsel to Prenda Law, said he’s filed more than 300 such suits himself, none of which had to go past jury selection, usually settling first.

“The fact that people fight tooth and nail to let us know their names, and then once we do they immediately settle, I think that tells you a lot of the strength of our evidence and the fact that you’re not quite as indignant when you know deep down that you did it.”

Hey Steele, what is your "deep down" knowledge?

Is Mr. Trenchi still working with Prenda? I'd expect by now that most attorneys who actually want a future in practicing law wouldn't get within smelling distance of Prenda.

What's the point in only storing 2 days of IP's if you backup those IP logs...

“The backups are stored on a separate cloud provider, pgp encrypted so the decryption key is not the same as the encryption key, and the decryption key is safely stored offline and is itself encrypted with a passphrase. So there’s no risk of users IPs getting compromised in a raid!”

So for practical purposes, 2 days worth of data, more with some serious time commitment.

Yes, but it means that it's still logged and stored (indefinitely?). If in the (seemingly unlikely) situation that <insert government agency> managed to get every piece of the puzzle.. They would then be able to en-masse possess logs for a LOT of people. (Average Joes' think that TPB is the only pirate site around).

There is still a risk, a very marginal one, of getting the logged data. To downplay it by saying "no risk" is a bit of a misnomer and a giving people a false sense of security.

Guys. TPB is probably tracking who UPLOADS trackers. Not who is downloading. Think about it....

Stop getting your panties in a bunch. Anyways. Anyone who is downloading from TPB in the open is an idiot. VPN's people. Its a massively useful tool. And not just for pirating. I no longer use hotel \ public networks without a VPN.

Interesting, we won the battle but we lost the war. Now the authorities know that they can get TPB to reveal IP addresses for torrent uploaders.

If the authorities had any kind of usable authority over TPB there wouldn't be a TPB so this is kind of a silly statement.

Just saying, maybe they used to say "sorry only two days bro, can't help you"

No we know they have logs going back into 2012

So? They never said "sorry bro only two days", they have never given up squat. Given that they are viewed as an illegal organization themselves who shouldn't even technically exist at this point you're not convincing me that they are a risk to become a government collaborator. You know who else has logs of your visits and uploading files to TPB? Your isp, and they are a hell of a lot easier to push over. I don't know what you think has changed but you haven't made the next step in critical analysis.

Further, the Prenda parties shall be required to post an additional bond in the amount of $135,933.66 (which is the $237,583.66 total, minus the $101,650.00 bond that the Prenda parties other than Mr. Gibbs have already posted) to cover costs on appeal, which includes attorneys fees since the underlying case is a copyright case. Azizian v. Federated Dep't Stores, Inc., 499 F.3d 950, 958 (9th Cir. 2007). The additional bond shall be subject to all the same conditions as the bond noted above. Failure to post the additional bond within 14 days shall result in the imposition of additional sanctions.

You know who else has logs of your visits and uploading files to TPB? Your isp, and they are a hell of a lot easier to push over. I don't know what you think has changed but you haven't made the next step in critical analysis.

Wouldn't this be a case of having enough information (even circumstantial) to have Comcast turn over who they are "subletting" the ip address to? After all, if a web site has that address it would be assumed to be static from the ISP (maybe not). After all there is enough information available to link Steele to all this stuff that a request would be appropriate, no? Better than saying "I have 5000 address and I want to know who is using them".

I am sure you all recall that Judge Wright sanctioned the Prenda gang $81,319.72 and that Prenda wanted to appeal. Well I am sure we all now Prenda posted a bond for just over a 100K to avoid the sanction penalty going any higher so.

Prenda and Duffy were supposed to confer in a meeting with Pietz ( who is the defendants attorney ) about the ground for the bond to meet all the requirements that both sides would need to agree to. Apparently Duffy was not to thrill with the meeting ordered by Judge Wright and blew it off..Twice!

Pietz has now filed notice with Judge Wright that the bond is made payable to John Doe (incidentally how does one cash a Cheque made to John Doe?) Pietz think's that's a problem too and has said so in his filing with Judge Wright.

Apparently Duffy wrote back to Pietz this little comment regarding the meeting to discuss the terms and conditions of the bond:

“You had no substantive points. If you think of some and can articulate them coherently I would be glad to consider them. Thanks for thinking of me.”

LOL...apparently Pietz didn't think that was very professional or helpful. So Pietz has rejected the bond proposed by Duffy and Prenda and has outlined his reason in the filing and proposed to Judge Wright the bond should be for the amount of $237,583.66,

I cant wait to see Prenda and Duffys reply to this one, it should be full of a lot of fury anger and some grovelling. It will be interesting to see how Judge Wright rules.

That seems like a seriously long time for backup tapes to be held too.

But yeah, that would be some seriously delicious irony if Steele is done in via someone else ratting out his IP address. Bonus irony points if Steele then attempts a "you can't prove that it was me just based on the IP address" defense. You know the exact argument many defendants have used that has fallen on Prenda's deaf ears.

I wouldn't be surprised. John Steele seems to care about John Steele. If he cared about professional ethics, or the law, he wouldn't be in this mess.

If he cared about professional ethics, or the law, he wouldn't be a lawyer